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The Manitoba Bisons would love to get back to .500 Thursday, because not only would it mean they won their last game of the first semester, it would mean it came against the Winnipeg Wesmen.

The crosstown rivalry will be renewed in Canada West basketball at the Investors Group Athletics Centre with a pair of 3-4 women’s teams facing off with a chance to level their records heading into the holiday break.

The annual Duckworth Challenge is now in its 21st year and for Pam Danis’ Bisons a victory would be huge. The Bisons dropped last week’s game at U of W 72-53, but you never have to tell anyone on either side of the rivalry to get amped up for one of these games.

“Playing against Winnipeg is a challenge completely distinct from playing any other team across the country,” fifth-year senior Bisons forward Mubo Ilelaboye said. “When it comes down to it, they’re our crosstown rivals, so winning or losing to them holds a different element to it. I think head to head, we are pretty even.”

Ilelaboye leads the Bisons in scoring at 14.9 points per game and is a leader on a young team that had won three straight games prior to last week’s loss.

“I feel that my responsibility is to be a leader to the girls that are younger than me,” she said. “I try to think of the different scenarios I was in when I was in my first year. I try to reflect that on the first-, second-year girls we have now and how they might be thinking. I know that I need to be an influence on the court and off the court.”

The women’s game will tip at 6 p.m., followed at 8 p.m. by the men’s game, which pits two teams separated by one game in the East Division standings. The Bisons (3-4), who 87-70 last week, have won the last three outings, and four of the last five, between the two.

“I think they’re probably a little more athletic than we are,” U of M men’s coach Kirby Schepp said of Winnipeg. “We’re probably a more offensive team, they’re a more defensive team in some ways. They’re very tough, scrappy. Their biggest strength is they’re very, very competitive and they have some tough kids. But we showed last week that we can deal with that.”

Senior guard Jonar Huertas, who is very familiar with local players having played at Sisler and then at Red River College prior to U of M, said his team wants to take the Wesmen down another notch.

“They have a couple guys on that team and they’re always talking,” he said. “So it’s always good to beat ‘em by 20.”

Huertas hinted his team needs to be better on the defensive end.

“We’re good on offence. The offence will take care of itself but the thing we need to work on is our intensity on defence.”

NOTES: Despite both holding losing records currently, the Bisons and Wesmen (2-5) are the only two teams to hand sixth-ranked Alberta a loss this season … The volleyball portion of the Challenge won’t get played until February.